The healthcare system falls apart when you're a complex patient

Jeffrey Brenner doesn't believe in blaming a person for showing up at an emergency room for a cold or an ear infection, even if the illness could have been treated in a doctor's office at much lower cost. Instead, he faults the health care system, and he wants to prove that if providers, employers and insurers work together more effectively, that person will stop going to the ER. Brenner, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and executive director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, is testing this theory with a randomized controlled trial. Findings are due out in 2016.